So the facts are as follows: We eat corn and corn derivatives that have been genetically modified, which has been banned for being unsafe in other countries -- the FDA has not done independent testing on the health effects of at least three types of corn that we are eating, and have instead taken Monsanto's word for the fact that they are safe. Monsanto resisted releasing their data to independent researchers -- environmental groups had to sue to get it. Once it was released and analyzed by one group of scientists, they wrote a dense study in a non-peer reviewed journal and found statistically significant amounts of organ failure in the rats in Monsanto's own study. Consumers often have no way of knowing clearly if they are eating genetically modified food.

No level of evidence is acceptable to you--you're asking for proof of a negative. We have no reason to think GMOs are dangerous, despite looking for any sign. But apparently this isn't sufficient.

"This product shall be safe for human consumption" is not a negative requirement.

You run a scientific trial using lab animals, study for the related factors that could affect humans. You review existing knowledge about genetic modifications in plants and how they impact food safety. You peer review the results and release them. Hold conferences and working groups and so on and discuss how/when you use these products. Get it out in the light of day, so people understand what they are eating.

It is done all the time in many industries. I am not sure why you think food safety is some kind of magic thing that cannot be analyzed.

Instead we get alot of "Trust us, it's fine" from Monsanto, who isn't exactly an objective third party. The FDA is hamstrung by regulatory capture, IMHO. The majority of the world refuses GMO products. Do you think they just do it out of spite, because they hate America?

"This product shall be safe for human consumption" is not a negative requirement.

You run a scientific trial using lab animals, study for the related factors that could affect humans. You review existing knowledge about genetic modifications in plants and how they impact food safety. You peer review the results and release them. Hold conferences and working groups and so on and discuss how/when you use these products. Get it out in the light of day, so people understand what they are eating.

It is done all the time in many industries. I am not sure why you think food safety is some kind of magic thing that cannot be analyzed.

The FDA does track food safety, and has standards that have to be met. If you want to increase food safety standards, I'm all for it, but what is the rationale for selectively higher standards only for GMOs?

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Instead we get alot of "Trust us, it's fine" from Monsanto, who isn't exactly an objective third party. The FDA is hamstrung by regulatory capture, IMHO. The majority of the world refuses GMO products. Do you think they just do it out of spite, because they hate America?

Ad populum is a logical fallacy. As for why I think they do it, I think they do it out of irrational fear. The same reason many countries reject nuclear power, favoring much deadlier coal. Nothing in this world is completely safe. Selectively obsessing about remote dangers while ignoring much higher risks (driving a car, drinking, smoking, eating a pound of bacon every day, etc) is a common and tragic failure mode for human reasoning.

You run a scientific trial using lab animals, study for the related factors that could affect humans. You review existing knowledge about genetic modifications in plants and how they impact food safety. You peer review the results and release them. Hold conferences and working groups and so on and discuss how/when you use these products. Get it out in the light of day, so people understand what they are eating.

It is done all the time in many industries. I am not sure why you think food safety is some kind of magic thing that cannot be analyzed.

I am not sure why you think food safety isn't analyzed. It is analyzed all the time. They just aren't finding anything to confirm your bias.

The FDA does track food safety, and has standards that have to be met. If you want to increase food safety standards, I'm all for it, but what is the rationale for selectively higher standards only for GMOs?

I believe the FDA does a poor job. Regulatory capture. I feel like I am a broken record here... Please address the point (or quit bringing it up).

I have higher standards for GMOs because I don't believe they are functionally equivalent to the normal methods of selective breeding. It's a case of "we don't know what we don't know", in my opinion.

The stupid part about this whole thing is that I don't really believe they are likely to be unsafe. It is the fact that no one wants to talk about it (or allow it to be discussed) that pisses me off. The safety of a product (or the ability to study a product for its safety) is not something that should be controlled by a private company that has a very large interest in seeing that product declared safe. Huge conflict of interest. They should give away their seeds to anyone that wants to study them.

I understand that GMOs are taboo and that talking about it in the news is likely to cause some PR problems, but I don't think that is an excuse to put a gag on the whole thing. It needs to be discussed and people need to know what they are eating.

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Ad populum is a logical fallacy. As for why I think they do it, I think they do it out of irrational fear. The same reason many countries reject nuclear power, favoring much deadlier coal. Nothing in this world is completely safe. Selectively obsessing about remote dangers while ignoring much higher risks (driving a car, drinking, smoking, eating a pound of bacon every day, etc) is a common and tragic failure mode for human reasoning.

I'm not selectively obsessing. Food safety is a concern of mine. GMOs are just one of the things I have concerns about. It would be completely off-topic to come in here and talk about factory farming, so I don't.

Perhaps not, but the people you held up as an example are. Various countries banning GMOs has nothing to do with facts. They just respond to popular opinion, and popular opinion is driven by fear-mongering. There exist no legitimate studies showing GMOs to be unsafe. You could just as easily decide any other random thing in modern life poses a danger to you. The plethora of prescription drugs, herbicides, and pesticides that we all ingest are good candidates - actually much better ones, because in many cases there is evidence that they can be harmful. Heck even food coloring is a better candidate (studies show yellow #5 causes organ disfunction and behavioral changes in rats, even in low doses if taken for a prolonged period).

Maybe we're both in the middle arguing against the extremes (although you certainly seem to be supporting countries that outright banned GMOs, so probably not), but I'm pretty goddamn tired of the selective public scrutiny. If you want to improve food testing across the board I certainly won't argue against that - so long as the standards don't become prohibitive.

The stupid part about this whole thing is that I don't really believe they are likely to be unsafe. It is the fact that no one wants to talk about it (or allow it to be discussed) that pisses me off.

This is a weird argument to make in the middle of a discussion about the topic.

"No one wants to discuss it" is not an argument, particularly because it's total bullshit. We are discussing it right now. The problem is that there is zero credibility on the "GMOs are unsafe" side of the argument, and lots of literature on the "there's nothing inherently dangerous about them" side, so there's not much to discuss.

The persecution angle is rather tiresome. No one is stopping you from making the real argument, whatever it might be. Make that argument, and not the "no one is letting me make an argument" argument.

Because scientists in the FDA express concern about political influence on the decisions made. People from drug companies (or others who have conflicts of interest) are used to review studies and give recommendations. The funding for the various studies is concealed and attempts to bring this to the light of day are shut down. There's lots of others. Google and Wikipedia would give you alot. I can start quoting them, if you want, but it's easy to find stuff out there...

vishnu wrote:

Maybe we're both in the middle arguing against the extremes (although you certainly seem to be supporting countries that outright banned GMOs, so probably not), but I'm pretty goddamn tired of the selective public scrutiny. If you want to improve food testing across the board I certainly won't argue against that - so long as the standards don't become prohibitive.

Again, I am not impressed with food safety in general. Arguing about factory farms in a GMO thread is off-topic, so I don't do it.

If people want to ban GMOs, that's fine. I would prefer that they did it for scientific reasons. There is enough doubt, IMHO, with respect to the integrity of the studies out there to make me question their validity. I can find evidence on the internet of attempts to control the results published, to prevent access to the items to be studied, and otherwise obfuscate the issue by those who are directly involved with creating and selling the products. I expect you can also quote me pages of articles to support the safety of those same products. So who do you trust?

I expect neither of us is a subject matter expert and can argue with any authority here.

Alamout wrote:

"No one wants to discuss it" is not an argument, particularly because it's total bullshit. We are discussing it right now. The problem is that there is zero credibility on the "GMOs are unsafe" side of the argument, and lots of literature on the "there's nothing inherently dangerous about them" side, so there's not much to discuss.

The persecution angle is rather tiresome. No one is stopping you from making the real argument, whatever it might be. Make that argument, and not the "no one is letting me make an argument" argument.

I am not complaining because no one is listening to me. I am complaining that few are allowed to research this or their results are discredited by those with a vested interest in the success of GMOs. I would like to see the FDA do its job and provide an unbiased and scientific opinion and I feel that their ability to do this is compromised.

By design, the "proof" I have is basically nebulous. It is hard to determine the motivations of those who are influencing things here, because they won't ever say why they are doing it. Opponents will say that they are controlling information in order to protect their investment. The companies involved will say that they are protecting themselves from people with an axe to grind. The FDA will claim that is is unbiased and not being influenced, but they can't hardly say they are in someone's pocket, can they?

Past history says that companies who can abuse their power, do. Microsoft, Intel, AT&T, US Steel, etc. I acknowledge this is not evidence of wrong-doing, but I don't think I can provide evidence that would satisfy you. You seem to dismiss my points out of hand.

The problem is, in essence, mercantilism guised as science. Europe and Japan have a long history of naked bans on agricultural products that pose a threat to their traditional but inefficient production methods. Science is often a prostituted tool for political end.

Food is dangerous. Melons, various berries, fish, meat etc., etc. –often Organic- kill and cripple people. Real and factual. GM agricultural products should be monitored of course. But any untoward incident should be evaluated in the context of food as a whole. As it is, the GM angst appears much greater than actual results would support.

It almost sounds like a believable conspiracy, until you realize there are people that aren't "in someone's pocket" as you put it.

Monsanto has all the Europeans in their pocket to surpress harmful studies, but can't even keep product on the market there?

Decades of actual usage, and no medical researcher has made his career by finding a new malady that can be linked?

Exactly. There is no reason that a European researcher has any incentive to find GMOs harmless--just the opposite. The EU bans GMOs and they're hugely unpopular--if there was a shred of evidence that they were actually harmful, any scientist would love to publish it. Public universities are funded by governments; European governments have no reason to promote GMOs; if anything the funding bias would be against GMOs. Indeed, the most prominent piece of biased science on this topic is the GMO-corn-kills-rats study.

While there are lots of problems with how research is done in the US and Europe, there really is no mechanism for the kind of censorship that AmigaPhreak is implying. A real study showing negative health effects would be a career-maker. Given that, the preponderance of negative results (that is, no significant difference) is even more striking.

And what the safety of appropriately approved GM food (also, EU doesn't ban all GMOs) has to do with the fact that an entirely unapproved GM strain - not approved in US either - ends up in food supply? Should we entirely abandon all checks on GMOs (even the ones where the manufacturer itself is doing all the testing, which is how it is in the US), is that the current argument or what?

Also, on whose scientists are in whose pockets, if you look at global warming you got to agree that for what ever reason science in EU seem to be less affected by corporate interests - unless you come up with some conspiracy for faking AGW, of course. There is a corporate interest in favour of GMO, and aside from conspiracy theories, there's zero corporate interest against GMOs - there is no corporation that benefits from ban of GMOs, only an imaginary inter-government conspiracy which wants to keep US off the market or something.

Because scientists in the FDA express concern about political influence on the decisions made. People from drug companies (or others who have conflicts of interest) are used to review studies and give recommendations. The funding for the various studies is concealed and attempts to bring this to the light of day are shut down. There's lots of others.

Politics does come to bear on some of the scientific decisions made by FDA scientists. That doesn't make the science unsound. And all FDA employees report to the executive branch ultimately. That does not mean that FDA is captured by those they regulate. If anything, they're captured by whoever is President and who the Prez appoints as commissioner.

FDA uses scientists from multiple sources on their advisory panels, and the agency is not bound by the votes of the panel committees. In fact, the agency often decides contrary to the panel recommendations.

Drug studies are conducted by the companies submitting applications for approval. There's nothing hidden about it. User fees, paid by the drug and device companies, are assessed in order help pay the salaries of reviewers at FDA, who are FDA employees, not drug company employees. Otherwise, the review times are greatly increased due to workload. Industry is quite happy with this arrangement and Congress continues to renew the authorizations. And don't try to argue that because industry pays user fees that the agency is more likely to approve the applications. It's simply not true.

I worked for FDA as a scientist for 20 years. You've made a blanket condemnation that isn't supported by the reality at the agency.

I don't get the comparisons to "vaccines cause autism" on this thread. Are Japan, South Korea and other reasonably advanced nations banning giving vaccines because of a fear of autism?

Not that I'm aware, but it's the same mentality at work. Neither position is supported by any sound scientific research that has been done.

The spread of these genes into the general population of plants is the only worrisome aspect, and it does have a sound scientific basis. However, it is debatable HOW worrisome such spread would be as plants are having no difficulty on their own evolving resistance to glyphosate (and insects to Bt toxins). It was the natural evolution of resistance to glyphosate that led to isolation of the original gene for glyphosate resistance. It is a naturally occurring gene, as were the original Bt genes. It also is safe to assume that nature has already tried all variants of the Bt gene. The glyphosate resistance gene might not have been under the same selective pressure, however, at least for glyphosate itself.

It is difficult to worry too much about gene transfer, when these genes generally lower the fitness of the plants. We're trying to make corn that works better for us, not corn that is more fit than wild corn. Better for us is generally worse for the corn. If a weed picks up a gene that makes it less fit, it isn't really a problem.

It is difficult to worry too much about gene transfer, when these genes generally lower the fitness of the plants.

Agreed.

While I haven't made an exhaustive survey, it seems this is generally the case for everything we've ever messed with, including livestock - even through traditional methods.

Off the top of my head I can't think of any modern domesticated animal that hasn't diverged significantly from what it was at the point of domestication, to the detriment of it's overall suitability for survival in the wild. IIRC, there are several species of plants and animals that we've modified so much that at this point, they can't even reproduce reliably without human intervention.

Heck, just look at something as simple and common as apples. We've been screwing around with those for centuries, but no one freaks out at the thought of importing or eating a McIntosh.

It is difficult to worry too much about gene transfer, when these genes generally lower the fitness of the plants. We're trying to make corn that works better for us, not corn that is more fit than wild corn. Better for us is generally worse for the corn. If a weed picks up a gene that makes it less fit, it isn't really a problem.

You're glossing over many problems. Roundup resistance can confer great fitness on weeds. That's why it's popping up in a whole shit-ton, not quite yet a metric shit-ton, of weeds. Yes, constitutive promoters generally give about a 10% hit on yield; that's part of why inducible promoters evolved. One can also infer that most secondary metabolites, such as gums, resins, alkaloids, terpenes and tannins, confer pest resistance on plants, yet cause a yield/fitness hit. Big, edible fruit, showy flowers, and insect sex hormones also hit fitness, one would think, depending on the selection pressure. Bt toxin might even end up causing less of fitness hit than a secondary metabolite if it's only made when a plant is senescing an organ.